Harvard Corporation condemns ‘racist vitriol’ directed at Claudine Gay and says she ‘acknowledged missteps’ – latest updates | Donald Trumpthedigitalchaps

Progressive senator Bernie Sanders is calling on Congress to cut off military assistance to Israel, saying its response to Hamas’s 7 October attack is “grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law”.

The statement by Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, could complicate passage of a security bill Joe Biden is supporting to fund Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, as well as Israel’s campaign against Hamas. Republicans have held up passage of the bill as they try to get Democrats to agree to tougher restrictions on asylum seekers, though some in the GOP oppose Ukraine aid entirely.

“The issue we face with Israel-Gaza is not complicated. While we recognize that Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attack began this war, we must also recognize that Israel’s military response has been grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law. And, most importantly for Americans, we must understand that Israel’s war against the Palestinian people has been significantly waged with U.S. bombs, artillery shells, and other forms of weaponry. And the results have been catastrophic,” Sanders said.

“Congress is working to pass a supplemental funding bill that includes $10 billion of unconditional military aid for the right-wing Netanyahu government to continue its brutal war against the Palestinian people. Enough is enough. Congress must reject that funding. The taxpayers of the United States must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.”

The Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing body, released a statement thanking Claudine Gay for her service as president, and condemning what they said was “racist vitriol” directed at her.

Gay, who took office in July, was the first African-American to serve as president of the 388-year-old institution, and the second woman. She resigned today amid allegations that she had committed plagiarism in her published work, and after House Republicans accused her of antisemitism following her appearance at a committee hearing that dealt with protests on college campuses against Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

“In the face of escalating controversy and conflict, President Gay and the Fellows have sought to be guided by the best interests of the institution whose future progress and well-being we are together committed to uphold. Her own message conveying her intention to step down eloquently underscores what those who have worked with her have long known – her commitment to the institution and its mission is deep and selfless. It is with that overarching consideration in mind that we have accepted her resignation,” the Harvard Corporation wrote in a letter obtained by the Guardian’s US politics live blog.

“We do so with sorrow. While President Gay has acknowledged missteps and has taken responsibility for them, it is also true that she has shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks. While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls. We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”

Elise Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman whose questions to Claudine Gay at a committee hearing led to the now-former Harvard president being accused of antisemitism, said her resignation was “long overdue”.

“I will always deliver results. The resignation of Harvard’s antisemitic plagiarist president is long overdue. Claudine Gay’s morally bankrupt answers to my questions made history as the most viewed Congressional testimony in the history of the U.S. Congress,” the New York congresswoman said in a statement. “Her answers were absolutely pathetic and devoid of the moral leadership and academic integrity required of the President of Harvard. This is just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history.”

While the questions by Stefanik to Gay along with University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth were criticized for being misleading, they were certainly consequential, with Magill resigning shortly after the 5 December hearing.

In her statement, Stefanik said Republicans would continue looking into antisemitism allegations on college campuses: “Our robust Congressional investigation will continue to move forward to expose the rot in our most “prestigious” higher education institutions and deliver accountability to the American people.”

Joanna Walters

The Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing body, has just announced that Alan M Garber will serve as interim president of the Ivy League institution “until a new leader for Harvard is identified and takes office,” Reuters reports.

Garber is a Harvard professor and since 2011 has been the university’s provost, essentially the institution’s chief academic officer who serves as an adviser to the deans and a bridge between them and the university president and governing body.

Joanna Walters

Gay says she will return to Harvard faculty after resigning the presidency. Her letter refers obliquely to the recent rows over the extent to which antisemitic speech would be tolerated on campus under the free speech banner and allegations of plagiarism in some of her past work.

It does not make clear explicitly why she has resigned or whether she was required to do so. She also signals that she has come under racist attack.

Her letter on the Harvard website further says:

My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor – two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

The full letter can be read here.

Harvard’s Claudine Gay issues resignation statement

Joanna Walters

The resignation letter of Claudine Gay has now been posted on the Harvard University website.

She says:

Dear members of the Harvard Community, it is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”

More follows.

Joanna Walters

The outgoing president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, has issued a statement saying “I will be stepping down as president,” Reuters reports.

No details have yet been issued about whether Gay is resigning as a result of a plagiarism scandal that unfolded about her in recent weeks, with some believing this was driven by rightwing activism intent of ousting the academic, or disquiet at her congressional testimony in Washington on 5 December.

There she declined to specifically outlaw speech on campus calling for the genocide of Jews in the wake of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza against Hamas for the Islamist group’s perpetration of a massacre in southern Israel on 7 October. Israel’s military retaliation has now killed more than 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Joanna Walters

At the 5 December congressional committee hearing in Washington, Representative Elise Stefanik – a Harvard graduate and former Republican mainstream conservative who has rebranded herself as a pro-Trump Maga Republican – was described by my colleague Robert Tait as having ambushed the university chiefs, towards the end of five hours of testimony.

Demanding “yes or no” answers, she succeeded in making them appear ambivalent or equivocal on the issue of genocide by posing general, broad-brush questions whose terms were open to competing definitions.

In one particular line of questioning seen as tendentious by some, she linked the Arabic word “intifada” – a term generally translated into English as “uprising” – with genocide, a word originally coined to describe crimes of deliberate group-based mass destruction.

“You understand that the use of the term ‘intifada’ in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews,” Stefanik asked Gay.

The question was asked against the backdrop of chants – including at student demonstrations – to “globalize the intifada” in response to Israel’s Gaza onslaught.

Yet using intifada as a synonym for genocide looks highly dubious. The first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s consisted largely of non-violent forms of civil disobedience. The second intifada of the 1990s and early 2000s saw a wave of suicide bombings that killed more than 1,000 Israelis and maimed many others. While segments of Israeli society were left traumatised, it appeared to fall short of the legal definition of genocide.

Gay did not contest or engage with Stefanik’s definitions but said “that type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent”.

Full report here.

Joanna Walters

The Harvard Crimson reports thus:

Gay’s resignation — just six months and two days into the presidency — comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.

Gay weathered scandal after scandal over her brief tenure, facing national backlash for her administration’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work.

The Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — is expected to announce the resignation to Harvard affiliates in an email later today. Gay is also expected to make a statement about the decision.”

Joanna Walters

Harvard president Claudine Gay will resign this afternoon, the campus student newspaper the Harvard Crimson is reporting, citing a person with knowledge of the decision.

The publication points out that Gay’s will be the shortest presidency in the university’s history. She only assumed the presidency of the private, elite Ivy League institution in July of 2023, the university’s 30th president, after having served as the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2018.

She was Harvard’s first Black president and only its second woman in that post.

Confirmation of this news is awaited.

Joanna Walters

The Harvard Corporation, the highest governing body at the elite private university, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had initially backed the university’s president, Claudine Gay, as she remained in post. This was despite calls for her removal following controversial testimony to Congress over antisemitism on campus last month.

Gay and the presidents of University of Pennsylvania and MIT had faced backlash for their remarks on Capitol Hill at a hearing into antisemitism on college campuses.

Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, of New York, demanded a “yes” or “no” response to her question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their university’s code of conduct. The presidents’ various responses were criticized for not being crystal clear in their condemnation of calls for genocide.

More than 70 lawmakers called for the three presidents to be removed following the hearing, with Harvard donors and some faculty echoing calls for Gay’s removal.

The House committee on education and the workforce has announced an official congressional investigation into antisemitism at Harvard.

Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned following the backlash, though she had been facing criticism before the hearing.

Gay issued an apology for her response during the congressional testimony in an interview with the Harvard Crimson.

More than 700 faculty members signed a petition backing Gay in response to the calls for her removal. The Harvard Alumni Association’s executive committee also announced its support for her.

On 12 December, the Harvard Corporation issued a statement of support for Gay’s presidency.

President of Harvard resigns after Israel-Gaza, plagiarism row – reports

Joanna Walters

The president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, has resigned, according to news agency Reuters, citing the student newspaper the Harvard Crimson.

Not directly Washington DC politics, but she’s been in the hot seat since controversial congressional testimony last month where she was slammed over antisemitic extreme speech from student bodies on campus calling for genocide amid Israel’s retaliation in Gaza for the 7 October Hamas attacks.

She was also in the spotlight for inquiries into accusations of plagiarism in some of her work.

More details asap.

We expect Donald Trump’s legal team to at some point today file to the Washington DC federal appeals court their latest argument that the former president is immune from charges related to the January 6 insurrection. Trump continues to lead in polls of the Republican presidential field, and also has surprising strength among Latino voters, who will prove crucial in deciding the next president. Meanwhile, a gunman opened fire early this morning at the building housing the Colorado supreme court, which last month disqualified Trump from the state’s primary ballot. However, police say the incident was not related to threats leveled against the justices since their decision.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• At least one legal expert believes the appeals court will reject Trump’s immunity claim.

• Steve Scalise, the second-highest ranking Republican in the House, endorsed Trump for president.

• Trump’s attacks on prosecutors who have brought charges against him could damage US democracy, experts fear.